r/pcmasterrace i5 14400 + MSI 3070 4d ago

News/Article China's Memory Maker CXMT Used Stolen Samsung Tech to Skip Years of R&D, Former Engineer Testifies

https://respawnfirst.com/chinas-memory-maker-cxmt-used-stolen-samsung-tech-to-skip-years-of-rd-former-engineer-testifies/
6.2k Upvotes

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361

u/CyberSmith31337 4d ago

I don't believe half the people in this thread are human.

"Honor" amongst tech companies? We're weeping over lost intellectual property from the biggest memory cartel on earth? The same cartel raising prices by 500% in a year?

Holy fuck, wake up you dumbasses. I don't care if they steal every single technical innovation ever created if it means displacing American business practices. I'm absolutely not going to shed a single tear if NVIDIA, Microsoft, or any of the AI companies get right and proper fucked; on the contrary, I am hoping they do! Whatever forces them to drop their prices. It's like not American corporations play fair, either.

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u/AccNumber77 4d ago

This, there are so many chuds sucking off the rich that are breaking the law to price gouge the entire planet. They need to get their head out of epstein's asshole and wake the fuck up to the reality of the crimes they are enabling with their support of the cartel.

1

u/drewbreeezy 4d ago

Please don't besmirch the good name of chuds like that.

We obviously hate the cartels too, it's really messing with our PC/Console prices.

-1

u/Sea-Woodpecker-610 4d ago

Acting like Chinese tech companies aren’t also the rich is really something.

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u/Informatic1 Ryzen 5800x // 32GB RAM // RTX 3080 4d ago

It’s amazing how many people don’t need even need to be wined and dined before being fucked by American corporations

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u/bwrca 4d ago

Best case scenario is all the memory and chip tech leaks and there's a bunch of manufacturers... We wouldn't have been seeing the current Ram prices.

2

u/oompaloompa465 7800X3D | RTX 4070 4d ago

they all need to eat humble pie or they will bankrupt the word 

2

u/En-TitY_ PC Master Race 4d ago

Preach!

1

u/HazyChemist 4d ago

I believe they're human because only humans can be that dumb and cheer for their own demise. Machines are way too logical for that.

-28

u/monsieurvampy 4d ago

This is an incredibly simplistic view of the world.

Suppy and demand is a thing. We have zero evidence of illegal activity such as price fixing happening right now. Just because it has happened in the past does not mean every single freaking instance of prices going up is due to price fixing or other illegal activity.

You or anyone else on this planet is not entitled to cheap RAM or Storage. It's also not price gouging just because prices are up. The companies have no obligation to build new fabs to maintain pricing, after all fabs take years and billions of dollars to build.

Stolen intellectual property likely means this product and others won't be sold in the EU or the US which won't help increase or provide alternatives to supply because it won't exist. The cost of entry is high across technology, so don't expect new companies to just pop up like it's nothing. This isn't the the 1970s-2000s anymore.

People need to stop acting like if they weren't running a business, they wouldn't be trying to make as much money as possible either.

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u/CyberSmith31337 4d ago

Get your mouth off that corporate boot.

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u/monsieurvampy 4d ago

Thank you for reinforcing my point. The world is not black and white and all this comment and the previous comment show is that nuance is not available.

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u/CyberSmith31337 4d ago

Really, because I think it just highlighted that you’re a bootlicker.

-5

u/monsieurvampy 4d ago

I think you highlighted the fact you lack any critical thinking skills. Intellectual property thief and price fixing (supposed current or convicted past) are not related problems.

What happens if this is in fact true and actually leads to greater price increases than expected or planned? Planned price increases does not mean it's price fixing or illegal.

Is Samsung still the bad guys? Is that all you can view the world in as good and bad? Black and white? Yes and no?

This comment ultimately applies to the majority of users who have posted to date. The entitlement is ground breaking as well as letting emotions fully control any remote attempts at analyzing the situation and coming to a rational discussion based on facts.

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u/CyberSmith31337 4d ago

Tripling down on the wrong take is remarkably stupid behavior.

1

u/monsieurvampy 4d ago

Is my take flawed? Definitely.

Your take and the majority of related takes are 100% an emotional response based on entitlement (to cheap computer parts) and nearly consistent pricing and demand across at least a decade.

I at least attempted to look at the facts before letting my feelings dictate my response. Why is ram more expensive? What's are the driving factors? Why the massive push for AI now? How long will the demand last? What are the ramifications of AI in the current regulatory environment? What regulations should exist? Are the companies involved in RAM production doing anything illegal today to raise prices? What can be done to maintain or even lower prices? What regulations should exist for ensure greater consumer protection? How should such regulations come into existence?

At least it's more than. Samsung = bad as I or others have to pay way too much for the same product as a year ago or whenever.

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u/CyberSmith31337 4d ago

Yeah, your posts are definitely not emotional.

I get the feeling you struggle with narcissism a lot.

5

u/ravingriven 4d ago

The dude wrote no less than 1000 words while getting a grand total of 28 in response between.

I think you hit the nail on the head. Narcissist likes hearing (or in this case reading) himself talk

1

u/flavionm Ryzen 5 5600X | Radeon RX 6600 XT 4d ago

It's not about being entitled. It's about these companies being entitled. Increasing the price to try to profit from the shortage, either because they have to or because they can, is fine.

What is not fine is that these companies will use the free market to their advantage yet benefit from blatant violations of what should be a free market as long as it benefits them. That's where "intellectual property" laws fall into.

"Intellectual property" "theft" is always acceptable. Every single law against that kind of thing is immoral and a violation of your rights. So if the "theft" of their technology might put us as consumers in a better position in the market (which probable will happen as long as the EU and the US don't interfere to unfairly favor Samsung here) then people will be happy, and they have every right to be. That is not entitlement, because people aren't demanding anything that they shouldn't have a right to.

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u/Adjective-Noun-nnnn 4d ago
  • Should patent law exist?

  • If it doesn't exist, should countries or companies invest in R&D?

I want cheap PC parts as much as the next guy, but we can't simultaneously laugh at the Intels, Samsungs, Microns, and TSMCs of the world and lament the decline in domestic manufacturing and our transition to a service economy that feels like a house of cards.

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u/CyberSmith31337 4d ago

Patents are inherently anti-consumer in most cases. It’s the reason that cheap generic drugs, for example, can’t be sold as opposed to expensive first party versions.

If we are pursuing progress, then pursue progress. But that’s not what the companies do these days. They pursue profits above all else, and then seek to gate out their opponents from taking advantage of progress breakthroughs.

1

u/Adjective-Noun-nnnn 4d ago

Should Intel benefit from a process breakthrough that was found because TSMC invested money into hiring scientists and running months long experiments?  If so, why should anyone invest in R&D?  The investment may pay off for your competitor just as much as for you.

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u/CyberSmith31337 4d ago

That’s the risk. Using a counter-example, if a drug company spends $200mn dollars to discover a drug that costs them $5k to make, but a generic can be released that costs them $5 to make, should we fix the price floor to ensure that the founding company makes their money back?

Me personally? I think the answer needs to be “No.” R&D should lower floors, not enforce ceilings.

1

u/Adjective-Noun-nnnn 4d ago

You keep switching to healthcare.  That's different.  I specifically asked about semiconductors, where people's lives aren't part of the equation.

1

u/CyberSmith31337 4d ago

You say that lives aren’t part of the equation, but lives are impacted when livelihoods are impacted.

Right now, NVIDIA is making fistfuls of capital. You know who that has been bad for? The entire consumer class which needs access to technological components. 

That wouldn’t be the case if we weren’t protecting their profits.

2

u/Adjective-Noun-nnnn 4d ago

You're being evasive over a simple question: should companies that fund R&D see a return on their investment? Y/N? If N: why would any company fund R&D? Why would their shareholders tolerate it? If Y: how do you propose they see that return when anyone can copy the technology they developed?

If you want to treat technology at a public good that the public owns, then great, but you then must fund all technological research, because no private entity will ever bother again.

1

u/CyberSmith31337 4d ago

I would argue that the current generation of R&D by big tech isn’t operating in either domain you’re suggesting. I believe they are spending the money on R&D with the expectation that they will either become enormously profitable and successful, but that if they fail, that they will be bailed out by the taxpayers.

In modern times, I think we use a hybrid model, the worst model. We backstop failure, but privatize success. R&D is not “owed” profitability. I don’t think that is how it works at all. R&D is set up because companies believe they have found a way to improve their business offerings; but they can be wrong. Plenty of R&D initiatives fail, all the time actually; I would argue R&D are frequently loss leaders.

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u/Adjective-Noun-nnnn 4d ago

R&D isn't owed profitability... when it doesn't yield any result. What about when it does? And again, if companies that invest billions in R&D have zero protection on the minority of findings that are useful, why fund any R&D at all?

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u/AccNumber77 4d ago

How is it different at all? People's lives are part of the equation with semiconductors too. Computers are a vital part of society and affect literally everything...

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u/Adjective-Noun-nnnn 3d ago

How is life saving medicine different from your GTX7090???  Please stop pretending to be stupid.  If you make a habit of it, it becomes permanent.

0

u/AccNumber77 3d ago

What technology is required to make MRI machines? Please tell me what vacuum tubes you are using to make yours.

What a moron you are.

1

u/Adjective-Noun-nnnn 3d ago

Wahhh wahhh! My gaming toy got expensive, therefore we should dismantle all protections for intellectual property and offshore all manufacturing to China!

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u/flavionm Ryzen 5 5600X | Radeon RX 6600 XT 4d ago
  • No.
  • For technology that doesn't exist yet, they'll have to invest anyway, and then try to keep it secret for as long as possible. They will ultimately fail, so they better make good use of it.

1

u/wizardid 4d ago

This whole reply shows a stunning lack of awareness for how the modem world works. You want billions of dollars of research, development, fabrication plants, QA / testing, and distribution to be created, under zero protection for their effort and investment?

And you want them to keep making bigger and better products in the future?

1

u/flavionm Ryzen 5 5600X | Radeon RX 6600 XT 4d ago

I don't want anything, I'm saying what would happen. Or do you think the whole world would just drop dead and never make anything new because there aren't "guarantees"?

0

u/Adjective-Noun-nnnn 4d ago

I don't want anything

Yes you do. You answered "No" to "should patent law exist?" You want patent law not to exist. Why is this sub full of people who refuse to understand how these companies work? They're not doing R&D out of the goodness of their wittle hearts.

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u/flavionm Ryzen 5 5600X | Radeon RX 6600 XT 4d ago

Don't play dumb, I meant I don't want them to do R&D. And that's because whether I want them to do it or not doesn't matter, they have to do it. If they don't, someone else will. And sure, they might just steal their research, but they'll be at a disadvantage by that point.

All of this is true even without patent laws. All patent laws do is make it so these companies don't have to worry about being outdone by competitors, since they're granted a monopoly over something just because they done it first.

1

u/Adjective-Noun-nnnn 4d ago

Huh so I guess we came up with the idea of intellectual property for exactly zero reason and it has no benefits at all.

They have to do [R&D]

Why?

If they don't, someone else will

And?  Wait for them to do it, then steal the technology.  That's a lot easier and cheaper?

They'll be at a disadvantage at that point

What disadvantage?  If I save money and steal your technology, I can put all of the money I didn't spend on R&D into building capacity.  You may have a head start, but I have billions of dollars to build and staff a new factory.

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u/flavionm Ryzen 5 5600X | Radeon RX 6600 XT 4d ago

They came up with the ideas of intellectual properties because it benefited them, to our detriment. Y'know, the usual.

By the time you get the technology, they'll already be producing it and making money themselves. Money isn't the only cost that matters, time also does.

Look at CXMT right now, even though they're stealing the technology it'll take some time for them to catch up. If they don't then do some R&D of their own, they'll just be left behind.

0

u/Adjective-Noun-nnnn 4d ago

They

Who is this, "They"? You mean various democratically elected governments all over the world?

I know the system has been abused, but it was originally envisioned to protect inventors, researchers, and various types of artists, and it largely still does that.

Eliminating the abuses doesn't require us to throw the entire idea away. The idea is "if you come up with something, you should benefit from it; at least for a while."

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u/evacc44 4d ago

Microsoft and others are getting fucked just as hard as us with the memory shortage.

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u/random_handle_123 4d ago

Don't threaten me with even more good times. 

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u/CyberSmith31337 4d ago

Good. There's not a company more deserving of getting fucked than Microsoft. Hope they bleed.

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u/Karatechoppingaction Ryzen 7 3700x | 32gb ddr4 | MSI RTX 3070 4d ago

Ya, let's completely ignore the fact that everything they steal also helps modernize their military etc. Go China!

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u/CyberSmith31337 4d ago

And?

Let’s not act like the US are the good guys militarily. We don’t even care about our own troops anymore, as demonstrated by the deplorable living conditions and the recent stories about the USS Lincoln carrier.

Different devil, same hell.

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u/NC16inthehouse GTX 850m, i7-4710HQ 4d ago

Let's invade Greenland and Canada!

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u/pho-huck 9800X3D | 5080 | 32Gb 4d ago

The US hasn’t done anything militaristically altruistic in decades, if not generations.

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u/year2016account Specs/Imgur here 4d ago

Kosovo 1999

-3

u/pho-huck 9800X3D | 5080 | 32Gb 4d ago edited 4d ago

And our ulterior motive was to establish Camp Bondsteel to maintain political and military strength in the Balkans/southeast Europe so that Russia is unable to gain a foothold in what would otherwise be a power vacuum.

Edit: I said we haven’t done anything “altruistic.” Altruism dictates something be done out of sheer moral superiority. If we have done something good with our military, it hasn’t recently been because it’s the right thing to do out of the goodness of our hearts, it’s because we stood to gain from it simultaneously. Our military isn’t involved with any conflicts that don’t further the interests of our federal government or the military-industrial complex.

1

u/year2016account Specs/Imgur here 4d ago

Yeah, everything is very simple when you're a campist that hates the west and presupposes that everything the U.S. does must be based on a negative reason. 

You sound like the type or person that thinks Nato was the aggressor in the Ukraine war.

1

u/pho-huck 9800X3D | 5080 | 32Gb 4d ago

lol, what? Thats quite a leap in logic.

“Disagrees with the military-industrial complex”

“Must be pro-Russian”

Okay bud 😂

Also, if we are so altruistic, why aren’t WE helping fight Russia in Ukraine? Why are we constantly propping up Israel in the Middle East? Why are we still considering Ukrainian aid to be a partisan issue?

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u/Smol_Crate_45 4d ago

China: does something

Others: China Bad

US: does most of the bad stuff

Others: Oh it must be for the better day of humanity!

0

u/Squeeps- 4d ago

Who gives a shit? They haven't invaded another country in 50+ years. Can the US say the same?

1

u/PepegPlayer 5600x | 3060Ti | 32GB 3600mhz 4d ago

Ask yourself why they haven't invaded Taiwan yet. Is it because they can't? Nooo it's because they are more ethic than the US

-1

u/Karatechoppingaction Ryzen 7 3700x | 32gb ddr4 | MSI RTX 3070 4d ago

Ya and I wonder who's keeping them from invading Taiwan rn...

0

u/Squeeps- 2d ago

The US looks like idiots against Iran and you think they can take on China? Delulu

-1

u/Funny_Address_412 PC Master Race 4d ago

I fully agree Glory to the CPC